Community | Hospitality | Nonviolence | Resistance

Fr. Carl Kabat

Plowshares Witness at N-8

I, Fr. Carl Kabat O.M.I., come to this evil place today as a Roman Catholic priest, of fifty years, to show what insanity is in the ground here and at other silos in our beautiful country.

President Barack Obama has stated, “As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act…So today I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment and desire to seek the peace and serenity of a world without nuclear weapons.”

The Roman Catholic Church, of which I am a priest, at the close of its Vatican Council II in 1965 condemned nuclear bombs as a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, and are to be condemned unreservedly.

The world Council of Churches has proclaimed that, “the manufacture, deployment, or use of nuclear bombs is a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.”

I support President Barack Obama’s desires and attempted to do my little bit in this effort.

The nuclear bomb that is in the ground here is more than 20 times more powerful than the atomic bombs we dropped on the Japanese. Each of those bombs killed more than 100,000 people. At least 20 times that number totals more than 2 million people.

The Bible says in the words of Isaiah, “They shall beat their spears into pruning hooks and their swords into plowshares.”

May The Holy One have mercy on us for not doing so.

Pentagon WitnessLiz McAlister, George Veasey arrested holding banner.

Early in the morning on August 6, we processed to the Pentagon wearing death masks and black robes. We walked from Army Navy Blvd. to the pedestrian tunnel, across the parking lot and onto the grassy area in front of the metro entrance to the Pentagon. Buddhist Nun, Sister Itchi led the procession with her drumming and chanting.

Because the Pentagon police knew we were coming, there was an extra ID check point and people ended up standing in a slow moving line right in front of us. We stood in silence for about an hour holding two banners: HIROSHIMA/NAGASAKI. ‘…a butchery of untold magnitude.” (Pope Paul VI) and the retreat theme banner: “Remember the Pain, Repent the Sin, Reclaim the Future.”

Pope Paul VI called America’s use of the atomic bomb “a butchery of untold magnitude.” Pope John Paul II called it “a self-destruction of mankind” and named Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Auschwitz as places marked by human injustice that should now be places of pilgrimage.

George Veasey and Liz McAlister hold banner: Remember the Pain, Repent the Sin, Reclaim the Future. Here, they are preparing to walk to the Pentagon. At the end of the walk, both George and Liz were arrested in front of a Pentagon entrance as they held this banner so that people going to work could see it. They are charged with disobeying a lawful order, and have a court date in the Alexandria Federal Court on October 23.

August 6, 2009. At the Japanese Embassy delivering apology for our country’s use of atomic weapons on the people of Japan, and resoloution to disarm nuclear weapons in our country..